The Don Dunstan Foundation gratefully acknowledges the support of the State Government of South Australia, the University of Adelaide and Flinders University

Making Future Tracts: Thinking our way to success

The Making Future Tracts initiative aims to pair off a dozen of South Australia 's established 'Thought Leaders' together with a group of up and coming 'Thought Leaders'. The challenge will be to take some of the ideas that have been generated by the Government's Thinkers in Residence and other initiatives that have considered South Australia and its future and take them to the next steps of implementation.

The series has been auspiced by the Don Dunstan Foundation, VIVASA, the Office of Youth Affairs and the Department of Education and Children's Services.

Steve Marshall, the Chief Executive of the Department of Education and Children's Services has agreed to make available the facilities at the Education Development Centre and Max Dumais, the former founding CEO of the DE BONO Institute has agreed to facilitate this series of workshops using Zing , a state of the art electronic meeting system developed here in Australia .

The series consists of a five part program and would include the following topics, with some initial suggested 'Thought Leaders' (we would welcome your help in expanding this list and will look to the Office of Youth, the Youth Council and others to identify young people to join that list).

The outcome will form a series of 'discussion starters' which may form part of the lead up to the Young Thinkers Forum in Sept 2006.

• Project outline
• Workshop schedule and output
• Contact details

Project outline

Aim

The aim is to bring together 24 'lead thinkers' from within the community of South Australia, provided that no less than half of these were under the age of 25 and that a gender balance has been maintained in their selection. Visiting interstate or international participants could be included provided that they can demonstrate both specialist knowledge and a genuine involvement with the future of South Australia by way of family or professional connection.

Format

The format would be a two and a half hour working session from 6:00pm until 8:30pm followed by an evening meal to be shared by all participants. Each session may begin with a twenty minute introduction by a specialist speaker chosen specifically for their work or interest in the topic. Each session will involve an introductory exercise to introduce both the established and the up and coming thinkers to the group as a whole.

The remainder of the workshop would be a facilitated interactive session using the Zing electronic meeting technology which allows twelve keyboards to input to the same program in order to engage and capture discussion from all of the participants. As facilitator, I am an accredited De Bono trainer and facilitator and have had extensive experience in community, government and corporate sectors.

Outcomes

The initial thinking around these topics would be used to formulate specific recommendations for action. Sponsorship from government and corporations would be sought to underwrite the publication of the outcome of the discussions through a series of 'Future Tracts' to be co-published by the participating groups behind the series and aimed to be distributed throughout the school system as discussion starters. This material could form the lead up to the Young Thinkers forum which will be part of the Thinkers Festival in 2006.

The outcome of these discussions would become public domain and each participating agency should feel free to use the material generated as a basis for further activity under their own respective auspices.

Workshop schedule and output

For more information on a particular workshop, please contact Max Dumais.

Contact details

Max Dumais, Workshop Facilitator

Tel: (08) 83735362
Fax: (08) 83735361
Moble: 0438213532
Email: max@aheadofthegame.com.au
Web site : www.aheadofthegame.com.au